taking only 1 child and leaving siblings at home?

[Sleeping~Beauty]

Thank you for the quick reply's. We will wait until next year when we can all go.

I'm glad you are going wait till all three can go.

Especially because your boys are so young, and there is so much they can have fun with, and it is Disney, the greatest place in all the world. It would just be so unfair to leave them behind while the younger sibling got to go.

 

[disney_family_1247]

I just read your post to my seven year old daughter and asked her what she thought and how she would feel if we brought her baby sister and left her and her brother behind. She said she would feel sad.

If you can't afford to take the whole family, don't go! The cost of the emotional baggage will be too high.

 

[stopher1]

While I do agree with most of the posters here...do it when the entire family can go...I will say that I have done this - to a degree myself, a few years back. DD was an infant (6 mos), and I took each of my boys on their OWN separate trips.

I travel a lot for business and had some free plane tix that needed to be used or expire, and had enough hotel points to cover an off-site Marriott for 3 nights for each boy's trip. Each time it was a special F/S weekend where DS was "in charge" getting to pick which park we went to, which water park we did, and basically how the day's activities played out. Our family has been able to go back time and time again - but of all the trips our kids have made to either WDW or DL - those F/S weekends are the ones that both boys still talk about most - several years later. And actually - just yesterday my younger son was asking when it would be their sister's turn for a F/D trip?

 

[danx2plus3more]

do not do it..they will remember it , and it will more then likley cause jealousy and resentment..i wouldnt do it

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

I would never do it. My sister is 42 and still has hurt feelings about how 1 set of grandparents favored our brother, the oldest. They took him to Phillies games, WDW,etc. and told my sister she was too little to go. He was 6 and she was 4 when they took him to WDW. (not like they promised her a trip to WDW when she would turn 6) I was just turning 2 so I don't remember it. As it worsened, my mom put a stop to it but the hurt feelings are still there.

I have 2 boys and could start to see my dad very slightly favoring my older ds. Nothing super obvious but I could see how my dad just lights up more seeing older ds. I often remind him to keep things fair for bday and Christmas gifts and if he has a favorite, he better keep it in his mind and not show it.

I would keep saving until all 5 can go. You can still go off on your own for a day to do girly things and the boys might like just being all guys too that day.

 

[MiniGirl]

Okay, I see the OP has already decided to wait, but o against the grain here. First off, we don't know how her sons feel about the whole thing. At 7 and 8, they could be *gasp* getting "too old" for WDW. If they don't really care to go, then I don't think a short mother/daughter trip to the World is out of line. Also, the OP's sons will probably never want to do the Cinderella dinner or BBB or all the girly stuff; so taking a trip w/o the boys and not making them suffer through all that isn't a bad thing. Also, the boys having special time with dad is great. They could go on their own trip at the same time.

Now, all that said..... going just for free dining for the 2 of you isn't worth it. If your dd is like mine were at that age, they wouldn't eat all that food. Also since I can't eat all the food in a regular meal, I always just let them eat off my plate. Much cheaper and much better for them than the endless parade of chicken fingers and fries.

 

[SavannahBetsy]

i was thinking about taking just my DD who is 5 and leaving my DS who is 2 at home i was thinking hed be too little and not have as good a time and truthfully be a handful lol but i just cant do it i know he will have a good time regardless of not being able to do as much as his sister can.

 

[brenalexacamp]

It really depends on the family-we went in august-dh and ds18 did not want to go-when we got back my bff asked me to share her dvc condo with her family-dh still does not want to go-ds18 in high school and still does not want to go

mydd14-is in school-cannot take her out and she just went-so although she wants to go she understands she cannot--they will have a sat night-maybe dh can take her and a friend to dinner/movie--they'll be at school and work all week.

I am trying not to play it up too much-my ds I am taking has down's and it will be his birthday when we are there---my dh was fine with this-
bren is dying to go-he asks every day

it depends on the family

 

[mom2my3kids]

nope never...

 

[DisneyTigers]

I have a friend who takes each of her kids w/ her husband to WDW when they turn 5, and she leaves the others at home. It is such a special time for the child who, if you have more than 2 kids, probably doesn't get lots of one on one time.

I have another friend (4 kids) who has been many times over the years and leaves behind whichever child is the "baby", which includes 3 of her children at one time or another, w/ grandparents. They still go regularly as a family, and there's been no resentment whatsoever there.

Meanwhile, only my oldest has been to Disney back when she was less than 2 and we only had one child (now we have 4), and we are planning our first family trip back in 8 years. If I were all of a sudden to take my younger child to WDW there would be he** to pay, but if we, as a family, went often, it wouldn't be that big of a deal... does that make sense?

I guess it also depends on how much emphasis your family puts on Disney. If Disney is the "end all be all," I wouldn't do it, but if it - to your kids - is just another place to go, then it wouldn't be that significant. IMHO.

 

[Camno's Mama]

I don't think it's that bad to do this. Especially if you make it into a mother/daughter trip. Maybe you could do a father/son thing during the summer or something. My dad did things like this with my brothers a lot growing up, and I wasn't any worse for the wear. My mom and my aunt also took the younger ones to Disney when myself and some of the older kids were school age...we were fine with that. We just knew that they were younger and not in school.

You just have to make sure that the week that they stay home, dh does something special with the boys. Then they can plan their thing together.

Aren't you going to Disney at the end of the year, anyway? You could just put an emphasis on that as well as the special thing you do for the boys.

I think it's all in how you handle it. I wouldn't talk about it constantly or make a countdown or whatever. Just kind of make it like it's part of the routine...no big deal kind of thing. Every family is different, and you know your kids best. If you think they would be incredibly disappointed, then it's probably not a good idea.

 

[Deffenm]

I appriciate all of the advise. I have decided not to go to WDW with just DD. I talked to the boys and they said they would be upset. They love WDW just as much as I do. We had planned on a family trip this Dec. but we have decided to wait until next year. We bought a pop up camper 2 weeks ago and plan on doing a lot of family camping trips this summer. I just thought it would be fun to spend sometime with DD. My DH stays at home with the kids while I work and I thought this would be something I could do with her and then plan something to do with each boy on my own. I still plan on doing something with each child but it will be something like Build a Bear, Chucky E Cheese, go to the movies. Thank you again for providing your thoughts.